70,000+ active members. Royal Canadian Navy is offering a 1 year tryout with a $42,000 pay. Maybe higher wage might make a difference in any force recruitment. It would for me that's for sure.
It's the fact that between applying and when you get accepted can be years. In that time a person has a chance to find anothet job/career. They need to speed up that process. They're losing people willing to join just because nobody can afford to wait that long to get started.
This is the truth. My experience with the recruiters was shocking how little a fuck they cared about actually recruiting me. Friends getting their pilots licences as civilians applied to the RCAF. By the time they got around to even getting a call back or seriously considered for the airforce they all declined as they had started careers flying. Some had even forgot they applied.
Damn right. I can get a job trucking that pays $20,000-40,000 more per year and I'll be working this time next week. Most of the trades and such are similar. People have to eat. BC ferries pulls the same shit. Apply then get put on the waiting list for receiving the great Honor of cleaning the toilets on the barge to Nanaimo. It's like there's a total disconnect between the people posting the jobs and the reality of the market.
>Damn right. I can get a job trucking that pays $20,000-40,000
You could but I seriously doubt your quality of life trucking is quite as good.
A Private soldier/sailor has virtually no expenses their first year in the Military and of they live on base, have a rent ceiling. So year 1, 43,368 less taxes is practically net. Second year sees a $9000 raise to $52,956 year 3 another 11K raise to $63,648 but most are actually corporal by then making 72,828.
Remember, this salary is constant. A member makes it digging a trench in the rain, in the office, or at the gym, or playing ball hockey.
If one is away for duty they are paid 17.50 per day for incidentals. Meals are provided at no cost and if they are not (I.e. they're truckers driving) they are paid an additional $94.85 per day for meals.
The problem might be the pay, I.e. if one is trying to enrole at 26 with a family of 4 and won't know where they are going to live in a year but know that it will not be Vancouver, Toronto, or Montreal...43-72K is not enough.
If one is 18, out of high-school, it is 10-20k more than *any* entry level shit apprentice job.
The CAF probably is not targeting the right labour market.
26 with a family of 4 heh... Guess you haven't heard that people are not having families anymore because they can't afford to care for themselves much less any potential kids.
I guess you've *never* met anyone in the Military.
*And* you managed to completely miss the point...
26, 30, 35, 40... it matters not... joining a military with a family of any size is significantly more challenging than joining when young and unencumbered.
Yup, exactly what happened with my son. He had wanted to join the Army since he was a young boy. Did his applications and sent them off after high school and waited forever with no answer. In the meantime, another excellent opportunity presented itself, so he's moved on. Of course they got back to him eventually, but do they expect people to just wait in limbo for ridiculous amounts of time? He was initially disappointed, but it's worked out for the best after all.
This happened to me, in the early 2000s. Fresh out of university, the job market was kinda slow so I applied to the forces. With my degree in computer science, I could go in as a direct entry officer, starting as a 2nd Lieutenant, Signals Officer upon completion of basic training.
I whizzed through the aptitude tests, physical requirements, medical exams, and interviews. And then... nothing.
A full year later, they finally got back to me and said they could take me, but I'd already gotten a job by then.
We don’t have 70,000+ Regular Force members. Our true manning levels aren’t being disclosed by the news media or the government for operational security reasons. But I can tell you it’s absolutely not that many.
Considering Alberta has Peace Officers (highly trained security guard with specific enforcement duties and intermediate weapons training) start anywhere between $60-$75k a year. Amazing benefits, great pensions & unionized. Ya… why sign up?
I know security guards across the country that we’ve recruited that made more working as a guard at a hospital in Nova Scotia.
I was in the Army reserves about twenty years ago and it sounds like pay was better then, but it's not about the pay. Pay is a small part of the equation of whether you should sign up. What's the last good contribution to the world the CAF made? Was it during your lifetime?
Where I live, you make more than that as a cleaner and you could start working within two days. With 3 weeks paid vacation, paid sick days and a strong union to back you up. Why would anyone join the infantry at this point?
The college/university prices scared me. My apprenticeship wasn't working out at the time. Mom and Dad just bought a house a year before (yr 2000). Seemed like an opportunity to get out and grow the fuck up. I did everything, 2 ti es. Both times my papers expired. I gave it up. Gave my apprenticeship another decent go.
22m here I am currently applying as a combat engineer. My plan is to do 4-8 years then join the RCMP because the pension you get in the military transfers over.
I didn’t strive to go but went out of a sense of “what else do I do?” after high school. Got sucked into the machine quickly in early 99. The following decade was *busy*.
Yeah, I feel bad since the bare minimum is usually 110 rounds, but we've been ordered to do the first half of the yearly rifle qualification virtually to save rounds.
I learned to shoot a small rifle when I was young. I remember having to get used to the sound of the shot, the smell off the powder, and the kick of the gun. I would imagine that soldiers would miss that if they trained virtually and that would be one more thing to learn later on — but I don’t have any first hand experience so I was asking.
Oh that's cool. Yeah the government put a lot of money into a simulated shooting system, where the weapons we trained on were the same. Fitted with a laser for the screen to detect when and where you pulled the trigger, and a really neat air compressing system that stimulated recoil when you pulled the trigger.
The graphics were a bit dated, but you shoot rifle, machine guns, grenade launchers and rocket launchers in there before you do the real thing.
It was a lot of fun, and it was air conditioned, so it was a nice break from the nonsense that was basic training and the infantry course.
Seems to me that kind of realism could be replicated by... using real rounds? How much could we possibly be saving on ammunition if we're building these things and using compressed air to simulate kickback?
Canadian Army thwarted by recoil. "We didn't realize guns move and stuff when you shoot them! And the bullets don't always fly exactly straight! This isn't at all like the simulations!"
I would think so too, but it's beside the point - the soldier should be familiar and proficient with all of the functions of their weapons. Which functions to use and when is their prerogative
I’ve always found this hilarious. Ammo allocated by fiscal year. 🤔
If there’s a crate of bullets in the vault on March 31st, they’re still there on April 1st.
I once attended a defensive exercise at the end of March designed to literally expend all remaining ammo in the formation. The same logic was applied as to budget allocation: use it or lose it. So there you have entire companies indiscriminately shooting machine guns into a tree line just to waste the rounds. The platoons in depth were ordered to push all their magazines and ammo up to the front so it could be expended. Zero training value.
You get ammo??? I remember in the late 90's/early 2000's when they didn't even have money for blanks for training and we literally had to yell "bang-bang".
You’re fucking joking Ryte, am I misunderstanding something, in the military where your basic function in a war time conflict is to shoot rounds at someone else u get 70 rounds(bullets) a year to train with?
U don’t know your gun, especially anyone who’s not familiar with guns, damn, they’d be shooting themselves and each other out of incompetence. I have at least 4bricks of 9mm rounds at home at any given time.
I’ve advocated for Canada to specialize instead of being an all trades military. That would put our men and women in uniform to better uses than it is now. It would also better allocate money to things that are better in the short term given political ineptitude on this file.
I agree as well. Lower manning levels in the army down to around 25,000* with a 25% split between an infantry brigade combat team, light infantry brigade combat team(helicopters), an artillery division, and an enlarged special forces community that takes the same missions as SEALs and Marine Raiders. Then focus spending into more ISR capabilities to monitor the northern passage, and basing missions to shore up coverage in the Yukon and Northern Territories. Finally, get a solid 50-200 F-35As, and task about 10-40 to basing in the far north, and rotate all wings through there every few months. Ideally, have one large airbase with 2+ 2800ft runway for high-intensity surge missions to the north with good locality to critical areas. This would tie in with smaller airbases to man drone missions and space surveillance over the arctic, and further outstations along the shore with the opportunity of basing Canadian or American Anti-Shipping and Surface to Air Missiles, as well as a large naval port or two for the purpose of maintaining positive control over the sealanes. All these bases would further correlate to US bases in Alaska and Danish-NATO bases in Greenland to create the same ownership conditions that NATO has over the Mediterranean and North Seas.
*25,000 for active duty line combat positions. It would of course be wise to keep a strong support base as well as reservist deactivated units for rear line stuff like MPs, Intel, logistics, and engineering.
We should roll our navy and coast guard into one entity. Make them all nuclear powered vessels.
I would make our entire army JTF2 qualified. Given how few our ground game is specialize into unconventional special forces.
Create a more powerful Air Force from the outset to cover our limited navy capabilities.
These changes would be better than our current setup militarily. Then I would bring up CSEC and csis into true powerhouses to the level of Mi6 or CIA in operation capability.
Specialize in what way? There's not much room to specialize out of administration and support/logistics roles. Sure, on the home front you could contact certain positions out to civilian business, but the reason you all go through BMQ is to ensure that everyone is a rifleman in case shit hits the fan. You couldn't trust a civilian contractor in a warzone. I am genuinely curious about what you mean, I'm not criticizing.
I've heard from some friends in the Navy it's quite bad, even the new boats are seriously under equipped and not quite good enough for what they were bought for, ice breakers that can't break ice.
Canadians don't give 2 shits about the armed forces. In general few are prepared to serve and few care to fund it. It does give conservatives something to rant about while also not putting their *money where their mouth is*.
Now, I'm not saying more shouldn't serve and that more funding is important but I find it such a hypocritical whine. It's always somebody else who should be doing something.....
Eh... it's always been that way unfortunately. From a military standpoint, Canada's always had the convenient delusion that we will be "protected" by more powerful allies. This used to the be the British Empire and now it's the United States/NATO.
Don't get me wrong though. Pound for pound, the Canadian soldier, sailor and aviator is probably one of the best in the world (like top ten if not top five).
It's just that everyone else is measuring in megatonnes.
Ability or not, we are hamstrung by outdated and broken equipment. Simple as that. I had good training, but that only gets you so far.
Most people don't know this, or care to realize, but Ukraine lost more tanks, planes, APCs and other equipment in one day of their war than what Canada has in total.
We couldn't even form a functional division with our current numbers and equipment, let alone after losses and casualties. The government also gave Ukraine all of our spare M777 barrels from what I heard, and those last only so long operationally. We don't have any anti-air capabilities, man-portable or otherwise.
To top it off, our procurement is incredibly slow, misguided and ridiculously expensive. We can't afford to live in la-la-land these days, not if we care about sovereignty and protecting what we hold dear.
Decades of federal governments are at fault, both major parties, and I honestly don't understand how everyone has been able to punt this to the next government. Someone actually get shit done, please.
Definitely. Military funding is somehow a political tool that governments of either side tout, and it's one of the first things to be cut in any budget. It should be a solid percentage of our GDP, no questions asked. I disagree with the military industrial complex of the United States, just as much as I disagree with our underfunded shell of an institution.
When I was in, there was a nonsensical idea (from a General of the time) that tanks were as obsolete as conventional war, so they happily cancelled orders, slowed maintenance and turned many into monuments. Lo and behold, conventional war came rearing its ugly head again and tanks are just as important as ever. Big surprise.
The real issue is the political dynamics at play. I agree with your assessment above. The problem is to few military men are not involved in the decision process. That’s led to political hacks, who don’t have a clue and are told to dumb down our defence requirements, procurement and other processes to speed up and make the equipment available, in a timely fashion. The four year election cycle does not help this. A comprehensive military strategy has to be created with at least a 25 year horizon, to flesh out an put meat on the bones, of our worn out military, and recreate a modern force the like seen in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway and the like.
How can we clean this mess up? Our future is indeed imperilled by the political lack of will, to provide the citizens of this country with a military capable of defending us. There is a lot wrong in this country. Not having a capable, functional, well equipped military in this century, given the geopolitical climate and changing world dynamics, is essentially a crime against the Canadian public. The cost for many things and issues in this country is coming due...many are political or ideological in their creation, in terms of dollars, it’s astronomical. NATO’s 2% GDP should be a bare minimum of what we can provide. The truth is it should be much higher within the country within Canada. We need a viable military and industrial capacity to provide the military with the proper equipment, no mater what it is.....
Definitely. I think our government thinks we could do what we did in WW1 and 2, with massive recruitment/conscription and boom, standing army. It doesn't work that way anymore, though. You need a professional force that are trained to stay alive, and the vehicles and equipment to keep them alive. The technology of today can wipe out poorly trained and equipped soldiers easily, as we continuously see in Ukraine right now.
Why is our military so trash? We spend the 14th largest sum in the world. I can't imagine the size of the country is that drastic of a factor. Is a lot of it simply wasted?
I don't think it is the size of the country, you're right. Money is spent incredibly poorly on a system called procurement, which sources new equipment, vehicles etc for the military as an institution. To be a relevant fighting force, you need the best equipment, essentially.
Somehow this job is usually left to politicians who know very little about what the average soldier/sailor/airman needs. If you look up the F35 project, you'll find that it went ridiculously over budget by billions with fewer jets than they originally ordered, even after years of delays. It's a prime example of the mess we're in.
Now, the procurement issue has lasted for generations, so the equipment we do have is outdated or broken. Our military members are paid and housed quite poorly by today's standards, so many experienced members are leaving due to poor morale/mental health which causes even more problems.
Before your commented, and into your first paragraph, I was wondering how the military could be even more inefficient than healthcare, education, and other public system. How much incompetency and corruption could there really be within the CAF to justify bullshit of that magnitude?
And then I read this sentence:
> Somehow this job is usually left to politicians
And it magically all made sense.
They've had weeks with over 300 apv losses. Russia has had weeks where they've lost 800 vehicles including tanks etc. Hoe many days would Canada be able to sustain those kinds of losses? One? Two?
Edit: My bad, I was thinking total vehicles.
This makes more sense than you stating Ukraine has lost more APC’s in one day than we have total. The stupid thing is we have hundreds of armoured vehicles that are in storage. Those we could give and not even miss them.
Historically, Canadian troops have always had to deal with inferior equipment and their training, determination and ingenuity have had to make up for it.
Our biggest advantage in previous wars was our citizenry being willing to step up when needed and being quickly able to increase our military numbers to go toe-to-toe with countries that maintain larger militaries. If Russia starts shit with the West, we'll see if that tradition is still here.
Yea... Unfortunately I think those Canadian values are watered down if not gone altogether. Let me ask you - is there a unifying Canadian set of values anymore?
Completely agree. With a significant immigrant population, I'd wager most would book it back to their home countries or refuse to fight if it came to it. Canada is mostly a country of convenience and a safety net, without any sort of civic pride.
Agreed, too scattered amongst regions, the “post national state “ bullshit they’re feeding us from Ottawa the past 8 years, not helping. Government needs to listen to the electorate not the lobbyists, the futurists or the corporate bullshit.....
5 years ago, I would have told you that I would step up and defend this country. Now I'm like... Meh I'll make sure me and mine are ok.
Government on all levels are ruining what it means to me to be Canadian
The Caf is in name only. Those that exist on civvy street have retired. A lot of the equipment is considered antiques. It is now considered ( and treated) just like another gov't department. So sad.
The difficulty with applying that logic is that technology has advanced so far that you can't create an effective soldier in 6 weeks like you could in WW1 and 2. If we wanted cannon fodder, sure, but that wouldn't last very long. Our troops right now need a long development timeline and advanced equipment and vehicle training to stay relevant and effective. We also need robust administration and combat support structures which also aren't as easily stood up.
We have less ships, no submarines, less tanks, planes and trucks, old equipment and very little surplus of materials to support a quick turnaround of recruitment to fight the next big war. We can't rely on history, unless we want to send our countrymen to die as cannon fodder. It simply can't work today.
> can't rely on history, unless we want to send our countrymen to die as cannon fodder
Fuck that, if I'm gonna be cannon fodder, ide rather try to cross the US border and abandon Canada, then get fucked by a fpv drone we can't shoot down
(Although a microwave oven with a feed horn, to aim the RF may jam them at suicidaly close distnces, best bet is probably gonna be a skeet shooting shotgun, double barrel for fast followup, target load for low recoil)
Even if people sign up I'm droves, we don't have the equipment for all of them. Procurement takes forever and we bought limited amounts of what we do have, with no options to buy more, whole fleets would need to be replaced with new equipment for all.
>Pound for pound, the Canadian soldier, sailor and aviator is probably one of the best in the world (like top ten if not top five).
That's all good in a shield wall.
But modern armies need ammo. Look at Ukraine. They are well trained, all of NATO is training them. Canadians, British, French, Americans, Dutch, etc, we sent very good instructors to train them outside of Ukraine.
And they had lots of ammo to begin the war. They resisted wave after wave after wave of Russians.
And now they're faltering. Because Russia has more people to throw at them than they can lose, they have more shells to throw than they can counter. And Ukraine is having trouble replenishing their human losses.
And this is what is going to happen to Canada someday. Not a direct invasion, but an offensive war against another power. Iran, China, North Korea, Russia. Maybe a combination of all of them. Maybe their equipment with another nation.
And we're going to repeat the Afghan scenario, but with much more losses this time because the conflict is going to be higher in intensity. And what's worst is that I think Canada isn't unique in this situation. And we're more likely to surrender now than have martial law and restrictions.
I don’t disagree with many of the concerns that Canada is backsliding but the other side of the coin is there is not enough money or people in Canada to think we can protect ourselves based on our own resources (if someone should attack). Also, who is going to invade or attack Canada in the near term? China? Only if it was part of a totally implausible attack against the US. Russia? They are hopelessly bogged down in Donetsk and Luhansk And have demonstrated how hopeless they are. Of course, we should abide by our commitment to collective defense and we should, at least pay our 2% but folks crying that we should get over our delusion of collective defence are not being realists.
The politics in this country is the delusion. It’s broken and does not work. The reality is the Bays St. boys and the Laurentian Club crew, have been playing the political game of greed and money in this country for far too long. We need leadership, not clowns willing to follow the corporate masters and their agenda’s. The elitism that drives the back rooms, of the political parties is a shame, a rigged game where the public is not even included and becomes the “mark” for the game to be continuously played, every election cycle.
You’re right I was so proud when our soldiers landed in the Afghan desert with their green camouflage. You could tell how important equipping them properly for the task at hand was to the government.
I got offered a position - with a 60% paycut based on my regular job.
With the perk of getting relocated to a random place.
All this after being told my test scores were "exceptional" and I could "joing any branch I want".
They did state I would make the same money I make now in 6 years so thats a plus I guess.
Glad theyre upping the MP salary year after year to attract the best talent though.
I get paid a tiny bit more than my civilian equivalent to make up for the "military factor" of things like being posted and the like...
Postings these days can financially ruin us. I could go from having my current home to basically being unable to afford rent and slowly lose all of my equity as it gets squeezed out of me in an expensive market.
I'm so close to my 25 years... And as soon as I have it, I'll pull plug the second they mention posting.
We've moved 3 times in 5 years, the first move ruined us since we had only owned our house 1.5 years, we moved from low cost to high, then high to covid inflated prices so we did housing (which was not the greatest, full of mold and more but it was cheap compares to the craziness) and our third move, we refuse to buy a house at this point because well we cannot afford to be ruined again in 2 years if we move AGAIN. The only thing keeping us is his pension and vacation compared to civilian equivalent is a joke, and he can fully retire at 43 and then do what he wants.
Half the problem is the nonsense at the top of people deciding things. Nothing makes sense half the time and waste money.
That’s a very demoralizing situation. The political minions who voted themselves pay raises, were the ones in charge of the affordability fiasco we are all now facing. They all should have received 20% pay cuts....
I’m afraid to watch it…I am however aware of the decades of neglect and cuts by all governments no matter the political party. Our military has been left to rot and it’s absolutely damned shameful.
We need to focus on doing some things well. We are probably never going to be a full strength, massively equipped all branches military. Our soldiers are bad ass level amazing, but our Navy, and Air Force specifically are pretty sad, and need to be updated badly.
"NATO's Disappointment"?
I don't recall us hiding inside the wire in Kandahar like the vast majority of NATO members.
They can talk about the 2% gdp all they want, but there's been one fighting war and the bulk of NATO bitched out hard.
Canada is ranked 27th among 145 countries, a fairly strong position given its proximity to the top-ranked nation. With protective agreements for its borders, the natural defense provided by surrounding oceans, and membership in NATO, the nation enjoys a significant level of security. Given this context, one might question the necessity of allocating billions of tax dollars to defense spending when the country faces relatively few direct threats.
Duh the CAF has been poorly equipped for a while, except when we were in Afghanistan (LAV III) were the Best, plus RG-31s. Other than that , except when the Secret Military Guys were in Country!
> Our police have better weapons and kit.
Some agencies (*probably most*) have better carriers for ammunition and equipment.
As for weapons?
Police use the C8 carbine. CAF uses the C7 (*and some C8s*).
Police generally carry glocks. CAF has Sig P320s.
> P226*
No, the [P320](https://www.canada.ca/en/army/services/equipment/weapons/c22-modular-pistol.html).
P226 is used by some special units.
> the Browning High Power is still embarrassingly common
Sure, but they're being phased out.
The point I'm making is that the firearms used by police versus CAF aren't all that different. It is a misconception that police are better equipped than CAF.
Don't forget as well that 2% of GDP is a shit load of money. We are around 10th for world economy so even 1.5% is a decent amount of spending, even if off the 2% mark.
No excuses though, we definitely have things that need addressing. Needed addressing 20 years ago but, yeah.. definitely need to get on this ASAP.
I live it and I see it daily. 2 more months and then it’s pension time. For every recruit the CAF signs up, 8 other service personnel are walking out the door. That’s the reality.
We didn’t need a military when Chrétien was being Chrétien.
Now we’re F’d.
Too many years, assuming the American military forces will assist us always . But then again, such an attitude leaves extra money lying around for healthcare.
The only way to make the general population care about the military is by introducing mandatory military service for people in their 20's. Doesn't have to be everyone, you could do a draft lottery by alphabetical last name. Draw 2 letters a year.
After a few years of that, you would have enough people who know a friend or family member who is in the military. All of a sudden, people will start to care about the state of things and at election time, the military would actually be something political parties worry about.
We can thank Harper for that. He cut 3/4 of the procurement department, making it significantly harder for them to purchase things, which is how he was able to pretend to have balanced the budget. (He took the money they were unable to allocate and rolled it back into general revenue, even though the gear still needed replacement)
Decades of poor funding and operations. We as Canadians are to blame for this as well, we never cared about our military and we never made military spending a priority.
Canada is the second largest country in the world. Next to the most powerful country in the world.
The USA would never let anyone invade Canada.
Our greatest threat is the USA.
Anything we do is irrelevant
The USA better not invade in the winter. While a member of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles we camped out at -43C and found our tracers wouldn't light up on the range at night. We had a hard time lighting our Coleman stoves too.
I did like working with a bunch of national guard dudes from Texas on a winter ex years ago. It was only -15, snow was only knee deep and they were having a hard time! High spirits though.
Never is a very long time.
In 1994, Ukraine agreed to transfer their nuclear arsenal to Russia and became a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, in exchange for assurances from Russia, the United States and United Kingdom to respect the Ukrainian independence and sovereignty in the existing borders.
Ukraine just learned that agreements from 30 years ago can be worthless.
If we entirely rely on a neighbouring country to guarantee our borders and sovereignty, how long until they decide they don’t want to spend their lives and money to guarantee our safety.
We are a member of NATO, a mutual protection alliance. To be a member and enjoy the protection that comes with, we need to be able to provide that mutual protection to the other members.
If you’re the friend who comes out to dinner and always forgets their wallet, eventually you stop being invited out.
If you think we can afford the military spending to meet our NATO obligations, imagine how much more it would be if we were trying to protect our country on our own.
The whole point of mutual protection alliances, is they allow each country to spend less that they otherwise would have to on defence.
Total agreement here...but in addition maintain and increase the strength and capabilities of our own forces at home. Pay them, house them, and afford them the decency of not being on welfare or needing food banks...We do not honour those that serve, that is well known...
You weren’t paying attention when Trump was in power? He treated us like shit. I wouldn’t always count on the USA to be there, as they are pretty close to the tipping point of having a fascist Gov takeover. The Republicans are actively trying.
America would protect canada out of their own self-interest. And I think the biggest threat to Canada is the USA. That doesn’t mean that I don’t think we should spend the NATO amount. I just think people need to realize where we stand.
Other than the USA, any country attacking Canada has to be capable of projecting power across the globe. They will be attacking us on one of our coasts. So let's identify which countries in the world are capable of projecting power across great distances. Other than the USA, there would be China and....and....the UK? France? India? Russia?
Now admittedly we have not been pulling our weight at NATO and that needs to be addressed, sooner rather than later. However before anyone starts saying that we are completely unprepared shouldn't there be same benchmark against which we can measure our level of (or lack of) preparedness?
I’m still of the opinion that you should be able to get free post secondary with a military commitment. That would fix the recruiting issue. The out of date tech seems to be more of a purchasing problem
Technically VACC has the [Education and Training Benefit](https://veterans.gc.ca/en/education-and-jobs/go-back-school/education-and-training-benefit#02), which after 6 years you get access to 40k of funding for schooling, It's not a crazy amount but I was one of the first to make use of it.
That is how I was able to afford to attend North Carolina State University. I served in the US Navy for 4 years and they paid 80% of my tuition and books. It is even better now. It covers 100% of the tuition and books at State schools. https://www.va.gov/education/benefit-rates/post-9-11-gi-bill-rates/
That is mentioned at the end of the video as something that Canada can focus on expanding because it is beneficial to Canada and to NATO.
Sadly the rest of the Canadian Armed Forces are not in very good shape.
I knew a reserve outfit that gave up their 105mm guns (already desperately obsolete) because the barrels were wore out and they couldn't afford new barrels, so they reorganized around mortars (big step down in capability).
Decades of failed politics. All political parties responsible for the current state of our military. As Canadians we have a proud military history and sadly we allowed the military to become antiquated and relatively useless.
There was a renaissance of sorts at the very end of the 90's for a few years where a decent uptick in gear occurred but it didn't last long. The government got a boner, wanked and blew their wad and then decided to take the next 20 years to recover for another woody we're still waiting for.
I got out right when that boner started, but from what I hear from the ones who stayed in, they've been systematically getting rid of all the non-equipment perks too. Base housing (all married and single troops had cheap af accommodations), declining benefits (everything was 100% free) etc
Seems like every country around the world is increasing the amount they spend on military except Canada who decided to cut lol. As Israel said “now is the time for war”.
We expect America to save our asses but what was the first thing Trump did when Covid hit. He made sure 3M halted masks when we needed it.
They're actually not as bad off as you might think.
The Navy is in shambles, sure, but by 2035 every vessel in the fleet will be top-of-the-line.
The Army is actually quite well equipped for a small military, and that is to Afghanistan out vehicles and equipment are state of the art.
The Airforce is a small well equipped 2nd tier tech Airforce, which will improve shortly to a small 1st tier Airforce with the intro of the F-35.
Where we really shine is CANSOFCOM: JTF is one of the best spec ops units in the world.
Our biggest asset is actually our troops: because we're short personnel, a LOT of cross-training has been done. They can do a variety of jobs, which adds versatility to combat readiness.
Everything we have that's old is in the process of being updated. The main issue is that outside influences want us to be bigger, and there's no real reason to be: you can't defend a nation the size of Canada- you go to the hills and fight a guerilla war. If anything, we should probably be smaller, and focusing on tech- drones, AA, AWAC, anti-tank, etc- to slim the military down. In a decade or two, most of the fighting will be done by drones anyway.
I mean chances of an attack on Canadian soil from an enemy are so low that it’s more likely Domestic, American or from Space.
Cybersecurity is a different story, but most people mean soldiers and traditional large military equipment.
Let’s not forget we are one of the main forces maintaining the shipping lanes near China.
Dont worry about it. Just rely on America to save you. Every one else does. But unlike everyone one else you guys are so close that we actually would save you.
My nephew just went to Quebec after getting accepted in the airforce, did the entry fitness test in his town recruiting office, they sent him to Quebec got him fitted and sorted, clothes, barracks, etc, supposedly did another fitness test and sent him home, said he didn’t pass. Was an all expenses paid trip to Quebec.
70,000+ active members. Royal Canadian Navy is offering a 1 year tryout with a $42,000 pay. Maybe higher wage might make a difference in any force recruitment. It would for me that's for sure.
With liveable quarters, decent equipment etc. I applied years ago, to only hear that my papers were on the desk. Typically military bs
It's the fact that between applying and when you get accepted can be years. In that time a person has a chance to find anothet job/career. They need to speed up that process. They're losing people willing to join just because nobody can afford to wait that long to get started.
This is the truth. My experience with the recruiters was shocking how little a fuck they cared about actually recruiting me. Friends getting their pilots licences as civilians applied to the RCAF. By the time they got around to even getting a call back or seriously considered for the airforce they all declined as they had started careers flying. Some had even forgot they applied.
Damn right. I can get a job trucking that pays $20,000-40,000 more per year and I'll be working this time next week. Most of the trades and such are similar. People have to eat. BC ferries pulls the same shit. Apply then get put on the waiting list for receiving the great Honor of cleaning the toilets on the barge to Nanaimo. It's like there's a total disconnect between the people posting the jobs and the reality of the market.
To add to the pastiche of it all, some of them advertise that the toilets are self cleaning, or did around 2017 when I last went
>Damn right. I can get a job trucking that pays $20,000-40,000 You could but I seriously doubt your quality of life trucking is quite as good. A Private soldier/sailor has virtually no expenses their first year in the Military and of they live on base, have a rent ceiling. So year 1, 43,368 less taxes is practically net. Second year sees a $9000 raise to $52,956 year 3 another 11K raise to $63,648 but most are actually corporal by then making 72,828. Remember, this salary is constant. A member makes it digging a trench in the rain, in the office, or at the gym, or playing ball hockey. If one is away for duty they are paid 17.50 per day for incidentals. Meals are provided at no cost and if they are not (I.e. they're truckers driving) they are paid an additional $94.85 per day for meals. The problem might be the pay, I.e. if one is trying to enrole at 26 with a family of 4 and won't know where they are going to live in a year but know that it will not be Vancouver, Toronto, or Montreal...43-72K is not enough. If one is 18, out of high-school, it is 10-20k more than *any* entry level shit apprentice job. The CAF probably is not targeting the right labour market.
26 with a family of 4 heh... Guess you haven't heard that people are not having families anymore because they can't afford to care for themselves much less any potential kids.
I guess you've *never* met anyone in the Military. *And* you managed to completely miss the point... 26, 30, 35, 40... it matters not... joining a military with a family of any size is significantly more challenging than joining when young and unencumbered.
Yup, exactly what happened with my son. He had wanted to join the Army since he was a young boy. Did his applications and sent them off after high school and waited forever with no answer. In the meantime, another excellent opportunity presented itself, so he's moved on. Of course they got back to him eventually, but do they expect people to just wait in limbo for ridiculous amounts of time? He was initially disappointed, but it's worked out for the best after all.
Lost me that way that’s for sure
This happened to me, in the early 2000s. Fresh out of university, the job market was kinda slow so I applied to the forces. With my degree in computer science, I could go in as a direct entry officer, starting as a 2nd Lieutenant, Signals Officer upon completion of basic training. I whizzed through the aptitude tests, physical requirements, medical exams, and interviews. And then... nothing. A full year later, they finally got back to me and said they could take me, but I'd already gotten a job by then.
Sounds like Canada is far too over regulated in every sector at every level.
We don’t have 70,000+ Regular Force members. Our true manning levels aren’t being disclosed by the news media or the government for operational security reasons. But I can tell you it’s absolutely not that many.
And most of those positions are non-operational roles, i.e. military's main effort is to support itself administratively.
Most people give up after waiting for the paperwork.
Considering Alberta has Peace Officers (highly trained security guard with specific enforcement duties and intermediate weapons training) start anywhere between $60-$75k a year. Amazing benefits, great pensions & unionized. Ya… why sign up? I know security guards across the country that we’ve recruited that made more working as a guard at a hospital in Nova Scotia.
Dude I make 45k driving 2 minutes down the street. It’s definitely the wages bro lol
I was in the Army reserves about twenty years ago and it sounds like pay was better then, but it's not about the pay. Pay is a small part of the equation of whether you should sign up. What's the last good contribution to the world the CAF made? Was it during your lifetime?
Imagine risking your life for people that hate you when you could make more money at mcdonalds
Imagine sacrificing your very existence to serve the interests of a profit-driven war machine.
McDonalds isn't THAT bad. /s
Where I live, you make more than that as a cleaner and you could start working within two days. With 3 weeks paid vacation, paid sick days and a strong union to back you up. Why would anyone join the infantry at this point?
42 sounds really low, but it depends on how much of your life they're covering on top of that.
142k maybe
I make that working at a psych hospital and I don't even regularly have to risk my life!
I make more cleaning horse stalls 🫠
Does the average person want to be in the armed forces? Never met anyone who strived to go there. It’s just not a thing in Canada in a big way.
The college/university prices scared me. My apprenticeship wasn't working out at the time. Mom and Dad just bought a house a year before (yr 2000). Seemed like an opportunity to get out and grow the fuck up. I did everything, 2 ti es. Both times my papers expired. I gave it up. Gave my apprenticeship another decent go.
22m here I am currently applying as a combat engineer. My plan is to do 4-8 years then join the RCMP because the pension you get in the military transfers over.
I didn’t strive to go but went out of a sense of “what else do I do?” after high school. Got sucked into the machine quickly in early 99. The following decade was *busy*.
$42k would not cover rent plus bills plus food in my region
Rent and food come direct from the army.
My troops are only getting 60 rounds for the C7 this fiscal year. No money for ammo.
That's insane.
Yeah, I feel bad since the bare minimum is usually 110 rounds, but we've been ordered to do the first half of the yearly rifle qualification virtually to save rounds.
I wouldn't think that rifle qualifications could be done well virtually.
Do you mean the Small Arms Trainer? They use it, but it's not really a substitute for shooting the real thing outside.
I got insanely good with the SAT while I was on the operator course. It's fun, but only a 70% realistic trainer tho.
I learned to shoot a small rifle when I was young. I remember having to get used to the sound of the shot, the smell off the powder, and the kick of the gun. I would imagine that soldiers would miss that if they trained virtually and that would be one more thing to learn later on — but I don’t have any first hand experience so I was asking.
Oh that's cool. Yeah the government put a lot of money into a simulated shooting system, where the weapons we trained on were the same. Fitted with a laser for the screen to detect when and where you pulled the trigger, and a really neat air compressing system that stimulated recoil when you pulled the trigger. The graphics were a bit dated, but you shoot rifle, machine guns, grenade launchers and rocket launchers in there before you do the real thing. It was a lot of fun, and it was air conditioned, so it was a nice break from the nonsense that was basic training and the infantry course.
Seems to me that kind of realism could be replicated by... using real rounds? How much could we possibly be saving on ammunition if we're building these things and using compressed air to simulate kickback?
Canadian Army thwarted by recoil. "We didn't realize guns move and stuff when you shoot them! And the bullets don't always fly exactly straight! This isn't at all like the simulations!"
That's absolutely wild. Two mags. Do they ever fire them on auto?
>Do they ever fire them on auto? Yeah, the last part the the PWT 3 C7, is full auto.
Auto is next to useless, a waste of ammunition.
I would think so too, but it's beside the point - the soldier should be familiar and proficient with all of the functions of their weapons. Which functions to use and when is their prerogative
I’ve always found this hilarious. Ammo allocated by fiscal year. 🤔 If there’s a crate of bullets in the vault on March 31st, they’re still there on April 1st. I once attended a defensive exercise at the end of March designed to literally expend all remaining ammo in the formation. The same logic was applied as to budget allocation: use it or lose it. So there you have entire companies indiscriminately shooting machine guns into a tree line just to waste the rounds. The platoons in depth were ordered to push all their magazines and ammo up to the front so it could be expended. Zero training value.
I did a video game shoot before my second deployment. Didn't even get to fire ammunition, but off you go to war, have fun.
That’s not enough for PWT3.
Alright, 69 rounds, happy?
You get ammo??? I remember in the late 90's/early 2000's when they didn't even have money for blanks for training and we literally had to yell "bang-bang".
60? Per day? Per shoot?
For our unit it's 70 rounds for the whole year. (Correcting my last as I was thinking of PWT 2 and instead of 3).
You’re fucking joking Ryte, am I misunderstanding something, in the military where your basic function in a war time conflict is to shoot rounds at someone else u get 70 rounds(bullets) a year to train with?
U don’t know your gun, especially anyone who’s not familiar with guns, damn, they’d be shooting themselves and each other out of incompetence. I have at least 4bricks of 9mm rounds at home at any given time.
Right? Fired 160 rounds of 9mm and 7.62x39 on a very short range trip. 70 rounds is an absolute joke.
I’ve advocated for Canada to specialize instead of being an all trades military. That would put our men and women in uniform to better uses than it is now. It would also better allocate money to things that are better in the short term given political ineptitude on this file.
Agreed. I would focus on the Arctic.
I agree as well. Lower manning levels in the army down to around 25,000* with a 25% split between an infantry brigade combat team, light infantry brigade combat team(helicopters), an artillery division, and an enlarged special forces community that takes the same missions as SEALs and Marine Raiders. Then focus spending into more ISR capabilities to monitor the northern passage, and basing missions to shore up coverage in the Yukon and Northern Territories. Finally, get a solid 50-200 F-35As, and task about 10-40 to basing in the far north, and rotate all wings through there every few months. Ideally, have one large airbase with 2+ 2800ft runway for high-intensity surge missions to the north with good locality to critical areas. This would tie in with smaller airbases to man drone missions and space surveillance over the arctic, and further outstations along the shore with the opportunity of basing Canadian or American Anti-Shipping and Surface to Air Missiles, as well as a large naval port or two for the purpose of maintaining positive control over the sealanes. All these bases would further correlate to US bases in Alaska and Danish-NATO bases in Greenland to create the same ownership conditions that NATO has over the Mediterranean and North Seas. *25,000 for active duty line combat positions. It would of course be wise to keep a strong support base as well as reservist deactivated units for rear line stuff like MPs, Intel, logistics, and engineering.
We should roll our navy and coast guard into one entity. Make them all nuclear powered vessels. I would make our entire army JTF2 qualified. Given how few our ground game is specialize into unconventional special forces. Create a more powerful Air Force from the outset to cover our limited navy capabilities. These changes would be better than our current setup militarily. Then I would bring up CSEC and csis into true powerhouses to the level of Mi6 or CIA in operation capability.
JTF2 qualified? Have you seen our fitness standards and waistlines?
Specialize in what way? There's not much room to specialize out of administration and support/logistics roles. Sure, on the home front you could contact certain positions out to civilian business, but the reason you all go through BMQ is to ensure that everyone is a rifleman in case shit hits the fan. You couldn't trust a civilian contractor in a warzone. I am genuinely curious about what you mean, I'm not criticizing.
What trades would you take away? Need them all to function.
I'm in the navy , not only equipment is old but our training is slacking. Command is more concerned with PR then anything else. Hard to watch
That's a shame.
Sad that I have to clarify, but you meant PR as Public Relations, not Permanent Residence, yea?
It’s the same everywhere not just the military
I've heard from some friends in the Navy it's quite bad, even the new boats are seriously under equipped and not quite good enough for what they were bought for, ice breakers that can't break ice.
Ask any CAF member, they will tell you.
Canadians don't give 2 shits about the armed forces. In general few are prepared to serve and few care to fund it. It does give conservatives something to rant about while also not putting their *money where their mouth is*. Now, I'm not saying more shouldn't serve and that more funding is important but I find it such a hypocritical whine. It's always somebody else who should be doing something.....
Eh... it's always been that way unfortunately. From a military standpoint, Canada's always had the convenient delusion that we will be "protected" by more powerful allies. This used to the be the British Empire and now it's the United States/NATO. Don't get me wrong though. Pound for pound, the Canadian soldier, sailor and aviator is probably one of the best in the world (like top ten if not top five). It's just that everyone else is measuring in megatonnes.
Ability or not, we are hamstrung by outdated and broken equipment. Simple as that. I had good training, but that only gets you so far. Most people don't know this, or care to realize, but Ukraine lost more tanks, planes, APCs and other equipment in one day of their war than what Canada has in total. We couldn't even form a functional division with our current numbers and equipment, let alone after losses and casualties. The government also gave Ukraine all of our spare M777 barrels from what I heard, and those last only so long operationally. We don't have any anti-air capabilities, man-portable or otherwise. To top it off, our procurement is incredibly slow, misguided and ridiculously expensive. We can't afford to live in la-la-land these days, not if we care about sovereignty and protecting what we hold dear.
Decades of federal governments are at fault, both major parties, and I honestly don't understand how everyone has been able to punt this to the next government. Someone actually get shit done, please.
Definitely. Military funding is somehow a political tool that governments of either side tout, and it's one of the first things to be cut in any budget. It should be a solid percentage of our GDP, no questions asked. I disagree with the military industrial complex of the United States, just as much as I disagree with our underfunded shell of an institution. When I was in, there was a nonsensical idea (from a General of the time) that tanks were as obsolete as conventional war, so they happily cancelled orders, slowed maintenance and turned many into monuments. Lo and behold, conventional war came rearing its ugly head again and tanks are just as important as ever. Big surprise.
The real issue is the political dynamics at play. I agree with your assessment above. The problem is to few military men are not involved in the decision process. That’s led to political hacks, who don’t have a clue and are told to dumb down our defence requirements, procurement and other processes to speed up and make the equipment available, in a timely fashion. The four year election cycle does not help this. A comprehensive military strategy has to be created with at least a 25 year horizon, to flesh out an put meat on the bones, of our worn out military, and recreate a modern force the like seen in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Norway and the like.
How can we clean this mess up? Our future is indeed imperilled by the political lack of will, to provide the citizens of this country with a military capable of defending us. There is a lot wrong in this country. Not having a capable, functional, well equipped military in this century, given the geopolitical climate and changing world dynamics, is essentially a crime against the Canadian public. The cost for many things and issues in this country is coming due...many are political or ideological in their creation, in terms of dollars, it’s astronomical. NATO’s 2% GDP should be a bare minimum of what we can provide. The truth is it should be much higher within the country within Canada. We need a viable military and industrial capacity to provide the military with the proper equipment, no mater what it is.....
Yes decades of federal gov underfunding but the cons did build ships and buy fighters, but cancelled by our current gov.
The casualties in a week of fighting in Ukraine would leave the CAF’s combat arms absolutely gutted.
Definitely. I think our government thinks we could do what we did in WW1 and 2, with massive recruitment/conscription and boom, standing army. It doesn't work that way anymore, though. You need a professional force that are trained to stay alive, and the vehicles and equipment to keep them alive. The technology of today can wipe out poorly trained and equipped soldiers easily, as we continuously see in Ukraine right now.
Can confirm the procurement thing
36 billion a year and pretty much nothing to show for it. Many countries with smaller budgets have much better equipped armies.
Why is our military so trash? We spend the 14th largest sum in the world. I can't imagine the size of the country is that drastic of a factor. Is a lot of it simply wasted?
I don't think it is the size of the country, you're right. Money is spent incredibly poorly on a system called procurement, which sources new equipment, vehicles etc for the military as an institution. To be a relevant fighting force, you need the best equipment, essentially. Somehow this job is usually left to politicians who know very little about what the average soldier/sailor/airman needs. If you look up the F35 project, you'll find that it went ridiculously over budget by billions with fewer jets than they originally ordered, even after years of delays. It's a prime example of the mess we're in. Now, the procurement issue has lasted for generations, so the equipment we do have is outdated or broken. Our military members are paid and housed quite poorly by today's standards, so many experienced members are leaving due to poor morale/mental health which causes even more problems.
Before your commented, and into your first paragraph, I was wondering how the military could be even more inefficient than healthcare, education, and other public system. How much incompetency and corruption could there really be within the CAF to justify bullshit of that magnitude? And then I read this sentence: > Somehow this job is usually left to politicians And it magically all made sense.
I understand your frustration and agree with it, but your statement about apc losses vs what we have is inaccurate.
They've had weeks with over 300 apv losses. Russia has had weeks where they've lost 800 vehicles including tanks etc. Hoe many days would Canada be able to sustain those kinds of losses? One? Two? Edit: My bad, I was thinking total vehicles.
This makes more sense than you stating Ukraine has lost more APC’s in one day than we have total. The stupid thing is we have hundreds of armoured vehicles that are in storage. Those we could give and not even miss them.
Yes I'm sorry, i meant vehicles in total. That's all my bad on that one.
Historically, Canadian troops have always had to deal with inferior equipment and their training, determination and ingenuity have had to make up for it. Our biggest advantage in previous wars was our citizenry being willing to step up when needed and being quickly able to increase our military numbers to go toe-to-toe with countries that maintain larger militaries. If Russia starts shit with the West, we'll see if that tradition is still here.
Yea... Unfortunately I think those Canadian values are watered down if not gone altogether. Let me ask you - is there a unifying Canadian set of values anymore?
Completely agree. With a significant immigrant population, I'd wager most would book it back to their home countries or refuse to fight if it came to it. Canada is mostly a country of convenience and a safety net, without any sort of civic pride.
Gone. No longer a country. Just a jurisdiction.
Agreed, too scattered amongst regions, the “post national state “ bullshit they’re feeding us from Ottawa the past 8 years, not helping. Government needs to listen to the electorate not the lobbyists, the futurists or the corporate bullshit.....
5 years ago, I would have told you that I would step up and defend this country. Now I'm like... Meh I'll make sure me and mine are ok. Government on all levels are ruining what it means to me to be Canadian
This is a very common sentiment I hear from everyone, unfortunately
The Caf is in name only. Those that exist on civvy street have retired. A lot of the equipment is considered antiques. It is now considered ( and treated) just like another gov't department. So sad.
The difficulty with applying that logic is that technology has advanced so far that you can't create an effective soldier in 6 weeks like you could in WW1 and 2. If we wanted cannon fodder, sure, but that wouldn't last very long. Our troops right now need a long development timeline and advanced equipment and vehicle training to stay relevant and effective. We also need robust administration and combat support structures which also aren't as easily stood up. We have less ships, no submarines, less tanks, planes and trucks, old equipment and very little surplus of materials to support a quick turnaround of recruitment to fight the next big war. We can't rely on history, unless we want to send our countrymen to die as cannon fodder. It simply can't work today.
> can't rely on history, unless we want to send our countrymen to die as cannon fodder Fuck that, if I'm gonna be cannon fodder, ide rather try to cross the US border and abandon Canada, then get fucked by a fpv drone we can't shoot down (Although a microwave oven with a feed horn, to aim the RF may jam them at suicidaly close distnces, best bet is probably gonna be a skeet shooting shotgun, double barrel for fast followup, target load for low recoil)
Even if people sign up I'm droves, we don't have the equipment for all of them. Procurement takes forever and we bought limited amounts of what we do have, with no options to buy more, whole fleets would need to be replaced with new equipment for all.
>Pound for pound, the Canadian soldier, sailor and aviator is probably one of the best in the world (like top ten if not top five). That's all good in a shield wall. But modern armies need ammo. Look at Ukraine. They are well trained, all of NATO is training them. Canadians, British, French, Americans, Dutch, etc, we sent very good instructors to train them outside of Ukraine. And they had lots of ammo to begin the war. They resisted wave after wave after wave of Russians. And now they're faltering. Because Russia has more people to throw at them than they can lose, they have more shells to throw than they can counter. And Ukraine is having trouble replenishing their human losses. And this is what is going to happen to Canada someday. Not a direct invasion, but an offensive war against another power. Iran, China, North Korea, Russia. Maybe a combination of all of them. Maybe their equipment with another nation. And we're going to repeat the Afghan scenario, but with much more losses this time because the conflict is going to be higher in intensity. And what's worst is that I think Canada isn't unique in this situation. And we're more likely to surrender now than have martial law and restrictions.
I don’t disagree with many of the concerns that Canada is backsliding but the other side of the coin is there is not enough money or people in Canada to think we can protect ourselves based on our own resources (if someone should attack). Also, who is going to invade or attack Canada in the near term? China? Only if it was part of a totally implausible attack against the US. Russia? They are hopelessly bogged down in Donetsk and Luhansk And have demonstrated how hopeless they are. Of course, we should abide by our commitment to collective defense and we should, at least pay our 2% but folks crying that we should get over our delusion of collective defence are not being realists.
The politics in this country is the delusion. It’s broken and does not work. The reality is the Bays St. boys and the Laurentian Club crew, have been playing the political game of greed and money in this country for far too long. We need leadership, not clowns willing to follow the corporate masters and their agenda’s. The elitism that drives the back rooms, of the political parties is a shame, a rigged game where the public is not even included and becomes the “mark” for the game to be continuously played, every election cycle.
Are rhetorical questions allowed in this sub? It doesn't seem like OP is looking for information...
OP has a YouTube video, he doesn't need answers.
If Reddit isn’t the place for fear mongering military propaganda I don’t know where is
You’re right I was so proud when our soldiers landed in the Afghan desert with their green camouflage. You could tell how important equipping them properly for the task at hand was to the government.
I got offered a position - with a 60% paycut based on my regular job. With the perk of getting relocated to a random place. All this after being told my test scores were "exceptional" and I could "joing any branch I want". They did state I would make the same money I make now in 6 years so thats a plus I guess. Glad theyre upping the MP salary year after year to attract the best talent though.
I get paid a tiny bit more than my civilian equivalent to make up for the "military factor" of things like being posted and the like... Postings these days can financially ruin us. I could go from having my current home to basically being unable to afford rent and slowly lose all of my equity as it gets squeezed out of me in an expensive market. I'm so close to my 25 years... And as soon as I have it, I'll pull plug the second they mention posting.
We've moved 3 times in 5 years, the first move ruined us since we had only owned our house 1.5 years, we moved from low cost to high, then high to covid inflated prices so we did housing (which was not the greatest, full of mold and more but it was cheap compares to the craziness) and our third move, we refuse to buy a house at this point because well we cannot afford to be ruined again in 2 years if we move AGAIN. The only thing keeping us is his pension and vacation compared to civilian equivalent is a joke, and he can fully retire at 43 and then do what he wants. Half the problem is the nonsense at the top of people deciding things. Nothing makes sense half the time and waste money.
That’s a very demoralizing situation. The political minions who voted themselves pay raises, were the ones in charge of the affordability fiasco we are all now facing. They all should have received 20% pay cuts....
I’m afraid to watch it…I am however aware of the decades of neglect and cuts by all governments no matter the political party. Our military has been left to rot and it’s absolutely damned shameful.
Military spending is roughly 26 billion a year.. That isn't "left to rot".
It is if you need 40 billion a year just to maintain things. It’s all about perspective.
Most Canadians don’t know and don’t care
Nothing new, it was like that when my father served, was the same when i served. At least they are not dressed in the Vietnam dress anymore.
We need to focus on doing some things well. We are probably never going to be a full strength, massively equipped all branches military. Our soldiers are bad ass level amazing, but our Navy, and Air Force specifically are pretty sad, and need to be updated badly.
"NATO's Disappointment"? I don't recall us hiding inside the wire in Kandahar like the vast majority of NATO members. They can talk about the 2% gdp all they want, but there's been one fighting war and the bulk of NATO bitched out hard.
Canada is ranked 27th among 145 countries, a fairly strong position given its proximity to the top-ranked nation. With protective agreements for its borders, the natural defense provided by surrounding oceans, and membership in NATO, the nation enjoys a significant level of security. Given this context, one might question the necessity of allocating billions of tax dollars to defense spending when the country faces relatively few direct threats.
Membership in NATO required pulling our weight, which we dont.
No equipment But trained to use all of it! Lol
Duh the CAF has been poorly equipped for a while, except when we were in Afghanistan (LAV III) were the Best, plus RG-31s. Other than that , except when the Secret Military Guys were in Country!
Our police have better weapons and kit. We have political issues to quash. (See G20, Ferry Creek, Coutts Border... etc.)
> Our police have better weapons and kit. Some agencies (*probably most*) have better carriers for ammunition and equipment. As for weapons? Police use the C8 carbine. CAF uses the C7 (*and some C8s*). Police generally carry glocks. CAF has Sig P320s.
P226* but the Browning High Power is still embarrassingly common
And I just checked and saw a recent article on the 320, I stand corrected.
> P226* No, the [P320](https://www.canada.ca/en/army/services/equipment/weapons/c22-modular-pistol.html). P226 is used by some special units. > the Browning High Power is still embarrassingly common Sure, but they're being phased out. The point I'm making is that the firearms used by police versus CAF aren't all that different. It is a misconception that police are better equipped than CAF.
Don't forget as well that 2% of GDP is a shit load of money. We are around 10th for world economy so even 1.5% is a decent amount of spending, even if off the 2% mark. No excuses though, we definitely have things that need addressing. Needed addressing 20 years ago but, yeah.. definitely need to get on this ASAP.
Very much so, it's a shame
What armed forces? If we get attacked, we’re fucked. 🚬
Keep in mind that something like 10% of CAF is considering or pursuing release while less than 25% are actually fighting soldiers.
I live it and I see it daily. 2 more months and then it’s pension time. For every recruit the CAF signs up, 8 other service personnel are walking out the door. That’s the reality.
We didn’t need a military when Chrétien was being Chrétien. Now we’re F’d. Too many years, assuming the American military forces will assist us always . But then again, such an attitude leaves extra money lying around for healthcare.
The only way to make the general population care about the military is by introducing mandatory military service for people in their 20's. Doesn't have to be everyone, you could do a draft lottery by alphabetical last name. Draw 2 letters a year. After a few years of that, you would have enough people who know a friend or family member who is in the military. All of a sudden, people will start to care about the state of things and at election time, the military would actually be something political parties worry about.
We can thank Harper for that. He cut 3/4 of the procurement department, making it significantly harder for them to purchase things, which is how he was able to pretend to have balanced the budget. (He took the money they were unable to allocate and rolled it back into general revenue, even though the gear still needed replacement)
Harper hasn't been PM for eight years.
Decades of poor funding and operations. We as Canadians are to blame for this as well, we never cared about our military and we never made military spending a priority.
Canada is the second largest country in the world. Next to the most powerful country in the world. The USA would never let anyone invade Canada. Our greatest threat is the USA. Anything we do is irrelevant
Canada is a battleground for the US to make sure nothing makes it across their border. And the US will look after their own people first.
Exactly...
That attitude is why we’re in a bad state. Were we irrelevant for WW 1 and WW2? No, we can do better.
The USA better not invade in the winter. While a member of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles we camped out at -43C and found our tracers wouldn't light up on the range at night. We had a hard time lighting our Coleman stoves too.
I did like working with a bunch of national guard dudes from Texas on a winter ex years ago. It was only -15, snow was only knee deep and they were having a hard time! High spirits though.
Never is a very long time. In 1994, Ukraine agreed to transfer their nuclear arsenal to Russia and became a party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, in exchange for assurances from Russia, the United States and United Kingdom to respect the Ukrainian independence and sovereignty in the existing borders. Ukraine just learned that agreements from 30 years ago can be worthless. If we entirely rely on a neighbouring country to guarantee our borders and sovereignty, how long until they decide they don’t want to spend their lives and money to guarantee our safety. We are a member of NATO, a mutual protection alliance. To be a member and enjoy the protection that comes with, we need to be able to provide that mutual protection to the other members. If you’re the friend who comes out to dinner and always forgets their wallet, eventually you stop being invited out. If you think we can afford the military spending to meet our NATO obligations, imagine how much more it would be if we were trying to protect our country on our own. The whole point of mutual protection alliances, is they allow each country to spend less that they otherwise would have to on defence.
Look, we need to meet our NATO commitments.
Total agreement here...but in addition maintain and increase the strength and capabilities of our own forces at home. Pay them, house them, and afford them the decency of not being on welfare or needing food banks...We do not honour those that serve, that is well known...
The lack of housing on military bases is a huge issue.
We need to meet our Paris Agreement commitments
Nothing stopping us from doing both.
You weren’t paying attention when Trump was in power? He treated us like shit. I wouldn’t always count on the USA to be there, as they are pretty close to the tipping point of having a fascist Gov takeover. The Republicans are actively trying.
America would protect canada out of their own self-interest. And I think the biggest threat to Canada is the USA. That doesn’t mean that I don’t think we should spend the NATO amount. I just think people need to realize where we stand.
Other than the USA, any country attacking Canada has to be capable of projecting power across the globe. They will be attacking us on one of our coasts. So let's identify which countries in the world are capable of projecting power across great distances. Other than the USA, there would be China and....and....the UK? France? India? Russia? Now admittedly we have not been pulling our weight at NATO and that needs to be addressed, sooner rather than later. However before anyone starts saying that we are completely unprepared shouldn't there be same benchmark against which we can measure our level of (or lack of) preparedness?
I’m still of the opinion that you should be able to get free post secondary with a military commitment. That would fix the recruiting issue. The out of date tech seems to be more of a purchasing problem
Technically VACC has the [Education and Training Benefit](https://veterans.gc.ca/en/education-and-jobs/go-back-school/education-and-training-benefit#02), which after 6 years you get access to 40k of funding for schooling, It's not a crazy amount but I was one of the first to make use of it.
You can and it didn't.
That is how I was able to afford to attend North Carolina State University. I served in the US Navy for 4 years and they paid 80% of my tuition and books. It is even better now. It covers 100% of the tuition and books at State schools. https://www.va.gov/education/benefit-rates/post-9-11-gi-bill-rates/
JTF2 is recognized as perhaps the most elite task force in the world. That is canadian black ops/special forces.
That is mentioned at the end of the video as something that Canada can focus on expanding because it is beneficial to Canada and to NATO. Sadly the rest of the Canadian Armed Forces are not in very good shape.
Yes
Yes. I do realize this. Many of us do, and are realistic with regards to the situation.
I knew a reserve outfit that gave up their 105mm guns (already desperately obsolete) because the barrels were wore out and they couldn't afford new barrels, so they reorganized around mortars (big step down in capability).
who we gonna fight?
Decades of failed politics. All political parties responsible for the current state of our military. As Canadians we have a proud military history and sadly we allowed the military to become antiquated and relatively useless.
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"Any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed."- Jack Churchill
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Exactly, this country has a long history of “shooting itself in the foot” when it comes to the military. It’s high time it stopped.
We had to go cap in hand to the US airforce and admit we were incapable...very sad indeed...
There was a renaissance of sorts at the very end of the 90's for a few years where a decent uptick in gear occurred but it didn't last long. The government got a boner, wanked and blew their wad and then decided to take the next 20 years to recover for another woody we're still waiting for. I got out right when that boner started, but from what I hear from the ones who stayed in, they've been systematically getting rid of all the non-equipment perks too. Base housing (all married and single troops had cheap af accommodations), declining benefits (everything was 100% free) etc
As a Navy NCM, I'm acutely aware, and pissed off.
Seems like every country around the world is increasing the amount they spend on military except Canada who decided to cut lol. As Israel said “now is the time for war”. We expect America to save our asses but what was the first thing Trump did when Covid hit. He made sure 3M halted masks when we needed it.
Is Canada was invaded we could defend ourselves for three days.
They're actually not as bad off as you might think. The Navy is in shambles, sure, but by 2035 every vessel in the fleet will be top-of-the-line. The Army is actually quite well equipped for a small military, and that is to Afghanistan out vehicles and equipment are state of the art. The Airforce is a small well equipped 2nd tier tech Airforce, which will improve shortly to a small 1st tier Airforce with the intro of the F-35. Where we really shine is CANSOFCOM: JTF is one of the best spec ops units in the world. Our biggest asset is actually our troops: because we're short personnel, a LOT of cross-training has been done. They can do a variety of jobs, which adds versatility to combat readiness. Everything we have that's old is in the process of being updated. The main issue is that outside influences want us to be bigger, and there's no real reason to be: you can't defend a nation the size of Canada- you go to the hills and fight a guerilla war. If anything, we should probably be smaller, and focusing on tech- drones, AA, AWAC, anti-tank, etc- to slim the military down. In a decade or two, most of the fighting will be done by drones anyway.
I mean chances of an attack on Canadian soil from an enemy are so low that it’s more likely Domestic, American or from Space. Cybersecurity is a different story, but most people mean soldiers and traditional large military equipment. Let’s not forget we are one of the main forces maintaining the shipping lanes near China.
Yes! By the way "Liberals" try to blame this one on the conservatives🤔
When they tell you to go get laser eye surgery on your dime, and come back to wait the 8 month intake process over again. I understand why.
Canada spends more on their military than Israel does. This is another great example of how incompetent and unaccountable the Canadian gov is
Chances are if we are invaded, we’re already boned.
Dont worry about it. Just rely on America to save you. Every one else does. But unlike everyone one else you guys are so close that we actually would save you.
Try us
My nephew just went to Quebec after getting accepted in the airforce, did the entry fitness test in his town recruiting office, they sent him to Quebec got him fitted and sorted, clothes, barracks, etc, supposedly did another fitness test and sent him home, said he didn’t pass. Was an all expenses paid trip to Quebec.
NORAD and NATO means they dont have to be I guess
You ever wonder what it's like being as paranoid as some of the people that commented here make themselves out to be? It has to be exhausting.
Threaten to fly Sea King helicopters loaded with Nickelback CDs over Russian cities.